Along with development and progress of technology, in some situations where a large amount of cash are to be handled, conventional processes such as manual counting, sorting and bundling are gradually taken over by a variety of advanced automatic handling systems. A machine core is one of core equipment in these systems.
There are two ways for the machine core of a self-service terminal to physically dispense banknotes, which are: dispensing banknotes according to slot, and dispensing banknotes according to nominal value.
Dispensing banknotes according to slot indicates dispensing banknotes according to the number of banknotes to be dispensed from respective slots, for example dispensing two banknotes from a first slot, and dispensing one banknote from a second slot. The dispensing banknotes according to nominal value indicates dispensing banknotes according to the number of banknotes at respective nominal values, for example dispensing two banknotes with nominal value of 100 yuan, and dispensing one banknote with nominal value of 50 yuan. The methods both have advantages and disadvantages. The method of dispensing banknotes according to slot has an advantage that: it can be ensured that cashboxes associated with a same nominal value dispense banknotes synchronously. For example, two cashboxes having banknotes at a nominal value of 100 can dispense banknotes simultaneously. However, the method of dispensing banknotes according to slot has a disadvantage that: in a case of multiple cashboxes associated with a same nominal value where a cashbox is empty and other cashboxes are non-empty, the non-empty cashboxes do not dispense banknotes if the empty cashbox fails to dispense banknotes. The method of dispensing banknotes according to nominal value has an advantage that: a cashbox dispenses banknotes only after another cashbox dispenses banknotes till empty, so the problem in the method of dispensing banknotes according to slot that failing to dispense in one cashbox will affect dispensing from other cashboxes, is avoided. However, by the method of dispensing banknotes according to nominal value, a cashbox dispenses banknotes only after another cashbox dispenses banknotes till empty, thus causing different lifetimes of the two cashboxes. The advantage of the method of dispensing banknotes according to nominal value corresponds to the disadvantage of the method of dispensing banknotes according to slot, and the disadvantage of the method of dispensing banknotes according to nominal value corresponds to the advantage of the method of dispensing banknotes according to slot.
In addition, for the cashbox, there is a consideration of banknote dispensing quality. The banknote dispensing quality of the cashbox relates to invalid banknotes dispensed from the cashbox. The more invalid banknotes are, the lower banknote dispensing quality of the cashbox is. The invalid banknotes will be recycled into a recycle box. If the banknote dispensing quality of the cashbox is too low, the recycle box is prone to be filled up with too many invalid banknotes, causing the self-service terminal unable to work properly. Therefore, once the recycle box is filled up with too many refused banknotes or unqualified banknotes from a cashbox with a high priority of dispensing, subsequent cashboxes with lower priorities of dispensing can not be used even though they are good in banknote quality. Especially, after banknotes are added into the self-service terminal, a too low qualified rate of banknotes dispensed from a cashbox for dispensing first will fill up the recycle box and cause the self-service terminal out of service. Then, other cashboxes can not be used even if qualified rates of banknotes in the cashboxes are very high, unless banknote clearance is performed by maintenance personnel, thus causing idling of self-service equipment resources and banknote resources. Low dispensing quality also causes excess mechanical abrasion of the machine core, and affects service quality and an operation rate of the self-service equipment.
Therefore, a method and a device for detecting banknote dispensing quality of cashboxes participating in a dispensing action during a dispensing process of the self-service terminal have significance in practice and value in usage.